WB guv criticises Cong fro Emergency

West Bengal governor K.N.Tripathi today criticised the Congress for the Emergency and said it was a calamity brought on the people of the country by those who claimed to be the "champions of democracy".

The Emergency period was the "darkest" in post-independent India. "How one can stoop so low to fulfil the lust for power was shamelessly demonstrated in those days in the activities of the then ruling party at the Centre," Tripathi said in a press statement.

"It was just not an Emergency. It was a calamity brought down on the people of India by none other than those who claimed to be champions of democracy. Patriots suffered during Emergency ... The entire country was practically turned into a jail. The Emergency saw thousands of innocent persons detained in jails for 19 months," he said without naming the Congress.

"There is always a limit even to atrocities but this limit was crossed everyday during the Emergency. Many Congressmen were seen active in vindicating their personal grievances and forcing the police to arrest their political adversaries.

"Humanity was absent throughout the Emergency," the governor said adding the declaration of Emergency did not receive the support of the people at large.

Emergency was imposed on June 25, 1975 during the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government at the Centre.